There
are loos downstairs and a nice shady courtyard. Nescafé
in paper cups 1.70 in stuffy smokey cafeteria, food
not allowed outside. Good shop.

You
need time and energy to do this justice but here are my
favourites, in chronological order:

Straight ahead of the entrance room
4: the Mycenaean room,containing finds from
Mycenae, Tyrins and Pylos. There is a good model
of the citadel at Mycenae.
Here is the original gold from Mycenae, (you
will see reproductions in the museum at Mycenae) it
is absolutely fabulous.In pride of place
are the stunning gold death masks, including the
one which Schliemann declared was the mask of
Agamemnon. It is in fact much earlier, dating from
the 16th century BC. On the left are the gold
sheet coverings from two dead babies (16th century
BC). On the right are the wonderful gold and ivory bull
rhyton and lion rhyton
I love the 13th century BC plaster mask (right)
from Mycenae, possibly a goddess or sphinx, with painted
features.

The frescoes from Tyrinsare
a fragment of the vivid wall paintings which decorated
the Palaces.

Look
out for the not very complete boar's tooth helmet,
no. 6568, on the right hand side by the entrance to the
side room. Homer describes these in the Iliad.

In case 9 are linear B
tablets from Pylos, 90 syllabic signs,
ideograms and numbers inscribed on damp clay with
a sharp bone or metal stylus and left in the sun
to dry. They were preserved by being baked in the
fire which destroyed the palace and were critical
to the decipherment of linear B by Michael
Ventris and John Chadwick.

To the right of the Mycenaean
room isthe Cycladic room with
examples from 3200 - 1100 BC including a
harp player and flute player (the flute is broken
and looks like binoculars!) and tiny violin
shaped figurines 2800-2300 BC.

For many more of these lovely
statues do visit the Cycladic
museum.

I suggest you now go back
to Rooms 7 & 8 (to the left of the
ticket office) where there are lots of
gorgeous kouroi (archaic statues)
including in room 7 a massive kouros
from Sounion and a life size one from
Thira; note the different colour marbles. Here
also is the most wonderful geometric funerary
vase, the women with their hands raised in
the mourning gesture.

In Room 8 is a lovely kore
holding her chiton skirt, a lotus fruit in her
hand, and a necklace, lots of red paint
and decoration of rosettes stars meander and
swastikas, 550-540 BC

Go from room 8 straight
throughto room 11 to see the last
kouros, 500 BC. Nowthere isbetter
understanding of anatomy, how muscles
work, the shifting of weight from one leg to
another, the arms are free; note the new short
hair, and more realistic eyes and smile.

Room 12
to the left of room 11 contains the sculptures which
weren't taken to Munich from the temple of Aphaia
on the island of Egina.

Room
13: Jumping weights, no 1926,used to give
athletes impetus.
A funerarybase (right) of akouros,
no3476,from the cemetery at Kerameikos
shows scenes from the gymnasium. On one side two
young men are wrestling, another is preparing to jump,
and on the right an athlete is preparing the pit.
Another funerary base, no 3477, showing men playing
hockey, 510-500 BC, would have marked the grave of an
athlete.

Room
15: Now we reach the Classical period severe style
with the famous bronze,c460 BC, of Zeus,
with his thunderbolt (or Poseidon with his trident?). Room
16 some fine funerary vases.

Room
17: finds from the Argive Heraion including an
akroterion, a head of Hera possibly the cult
statue by Polykleitos of Argos

Rooms
18 to 27: lots of funeral steles of
varying quality, they give a good picture of everyday
people in the 4th century, some are very touching final farewell
scenes.

Room
22: sculpture from sanctuary of Asklepios at Epídauros,
including a lovely Nike akroterion from the west
pediment of the temple of Artemis, Parian marble, late
4th century, and the akroterion of the temple of
Asklepios, c380, showing a Nereid or Aura on a horse
rising from ocean.

Room 24: Now the stele are really
big. Eventually a law was brought in to constrain the
size of funerary monuments!

Room 28:
Bronze of young athlete possibly school of
Praxitiles. c340-330, life size bronze of Paris
c340-330; on the left look out for part of a marble disc
with the head of a goddess [poss Aphrodite] c460.

Room
30: marble group of Aphrodite, Pan, Eros,100
BC , from an Attik workshop - how very different
to the kouroi we started with!

Room 31:bronze of Augustus in mature age riding a horse
(missing.)

The
lovely bronze horse and jockey, 2nd century BC, was
found in the ship Room 31:bronze of Augustus
in mature age riding a horse (missing.)

Upstairs

Room 48
Here are the outstanding wall paintings
or frescoes from Thira (Santorini). Dating from the 16th
century BC they were preserved beneath the
pumice of the catastrophic volcanic eruption there in
c1500 BC. The frescoes decorated the walls of houses in
Akrotiri and give a picture of the culture and
comfortable lifestyle of the town. Particularly beautiful
are the paintings of antelopes, the fishermen and the
'Boxing Children'.

Rooms
49 - 56 contain vases from the
11th century BC to the 4th century BC.

In room
50 is a very fine Geometric krater (no 990) from
Dipylon showing a burial scene; the body
on a horse drawn carriage is surrounded by mourning women
and below that a chariot race is depicted.

In room
52 look out for the clay replica of a house or
temple (c680 BC) from the Argive Heraion
and other small objects from the site. In showcase
45 is a lovely painting of a lamb being prepared
for sacrifice.